CNN has fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill for advocating for a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis in a speech at the United Nations. Hill believes that given the extent of settlement activity in Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, a two-state solution is no longer viable. That leaves two paths forward: A single state in which all citizens within the borders have equal rights, or a single state that operates on an apartheid model where some citizens have basic rights, while others are left in a second-class legal status.

CNN caved to pressure, wrongly saying Lamont Hill’s views are anti-Semitic and firing him on that false premise. Outside of the United States, a one-state solution is becoming a non-controversial suggestion, while here in the U.S., it is cause for firing from a job doing political commentary. Agree or disagree with Lamont Hill's proposal, his right to hold it is a bedrock principle.

You fired Marc Lamont Hill for advocating for a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis in a speech at the United Nations. Hill believes that given the extent of settlement activity in Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, a two-state solution is no longer viable. That leaves two paths forward: A single state in which all citizens within the borders have equal rights, or a single state that operates on an apartheid model where some citizens have basic rights, while others are left in a second-class legal status.

Some pro-Israel advocates argue that the former position -- one state with equal rights -- is anti-Semitic, because the Palestinian population within Israel will continue to grow and will ultimately amass a majority capable of taking democratic power and ending its status as a Jewish state. Outside of the United States, a one-state solution is becoming a non-controversial suggestion, while here in the U.S., it is cause for firing from a job doing political commentary. Agree or disagree with Lamont Hill's proposal, his right to hold it is a bedrock principle.

Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) defended former CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill's remarks defending Palestinian violence against Israel at a recent United Nations speech, tweeting that "calling out the oppressive policies in Israel" was not anti-Semitic.

CNN dropped Hill from his contract on Thursday after he spoke at the U.N.'s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People a day earlier. A fervent critic of Israel, he used the Palestinian nationalist phrase calling for a "free Palestine from the river to the sea," which suggests the elimination of the state of Israel which sits between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, and said while peace should be prioritized, "we must not romanticize or fetishize it."

"Tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom," he said. "If we are in true solidarity, we must allow them the same range of opportunity and political possibility. We must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend themselves. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing."

"To commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires, and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea," Hill concluded, leading to applause.

"Resisting" is a common euphemism for defenders of Palestinian terrorist methods. The Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005, is now governed by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians.

After an outcry over his comments that included condemnation by the Anti-Defamation League, CNN fired Hill. Tlaib defended Hill's comments in a tweet on Thursday.

"Calling out the oppressive policies in Israel, advocating for Palestinians to be respected, and for Israelis and Palestinians alike to have peace and freedom is not antisemitic. @CNN, we all have a right to speak up about injustice any and everywhere," she wrote, tagging Hill in the tweet.

Tlaib also retweeted Ryan Grim, a writer for the left-wing site The Intercept, which linked to a petition demanding CNN rehire Hill.

Tlaib, a Palestinian American, has taken several positions hostile to Israel, including saying she would vote against aid to the country, expressing opposition to a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which the ADL has condemned as a deceitful method of delegitimizing the Jewish state.

Hill strongly denied calling for Israel's destruction and has insisted he's fought against anti-Semitism, but he has a history of praising radical anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahn. He once listed Farrakhan as among the people "I'd like to meet," as well as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and convicted cop killers Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu Jamal.

All is not well in the Jewish state and everyone who is paying attention knows it. Below are some pictures of Ethiopian Jews demonstrating against racism and struggling for equal rights in the Zionist Jewish state run by European Jews. They are colonial racists akin to Nazis. They are, along with Saudi Arabia, part and parcel of U.S. imperialism, a military outpost planted in the Middle East.

The Zionists brought Ethiopian Jews to Israel, not because they find kinship with them, but to be cannon fodder to kill Palestinians.

All is not well in the Jewish state and everyone who is paying attention knows it.

CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill, an African-American, who spoke up for the Palestinians at the U.N. Anyone who speaks ill of the Nazi Zionists is considered “anti-Semitic,” which is ironic because these Ethiopians are Semitic and the Ashkenazim are not. The Semitic peoples are the Arabs, including the Palestinians, East Africans and North Africans – this includes Christians and Muslims.

This discrepancy is allowed to exist because most people are ignorant of the facts of history, which serves the interests of the exploiters. Those who peddle this gross misunderstanding have “alternative facts.” Time to wake up, America! Time to wake up!

Long live the struggle against Zionism, Nazism and racism. Free Palestine! Support the BDS movement!

by Yousef Munayyer

Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University and a fierce advocate for equality, was perhaps the strongest, most articulate and most passionate voice against racism and bigotry among CNN’s regular contributors. On Nov. 29, CNN fired him because he believes Palestinians, too, fit into a vision where all people deserve equal rights. For CNN, that was just too much.

Marc was targeted by what can only be described as an organized campaign to silence his principled and consistent advocacy against racism and for the equal treatment of all people, including Palestinians.

Wednesday, Nov. 28, as part of a Special Meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in observance of the United Nations International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People at U.N. headquarters in New York, Marc was invited as a member of civil society to provide a statement to the forum. He did so, having just returned from the Palestinian territories, and he made clear that his experience as a Black American and the history of struggle against slavery and Jim Crow in the United States inform his solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Marc was targeted by what can only be described as an organized campaign to silence his principled and consistent advocacy against racism and for the equal treatment of all people, including Palestinians.

The demand that Palestinians have equal rights from the river to the sea is not radical or racist or bigoted.

In his remarks, Marc outlined the need to work for the human rights of Palestinians in line with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and that this includes the rights of Palestinian refugees and Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel who face routine discrimination. The geography where this discrimination and mistreatment takes place is in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

This includes Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. Yet critics jumped on Marc’s use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” to portray him as some sort of radical eliminationist – someone who believes that Israel should be violently destroyed or that Jews should be forcibly expelled – when anyone who heard his statement or knows his advocacy can tell you he is anything but.

The demand that Palestinians have equal rights from the river to the sea is not radical or racist or bigoted.

You see, Palestinians deserve to have their full human rights wherever they live. Just as we should expect nothing less than equal rights for African-Americans or any group ― from sea to shining sea ― and not just in some tiny fraction of the United States, so too should Palestinians be afforded equal treatment under the law no matter in what part of the land between the river and the sea that they live.

People should be treated as equals before the law, regardless of their identity. This isn’t rocket science, and it really isn’t difficult to comprehend unless, perhaps, you support racist and discriminatory rule.

The reality, of course, is that it is Israel that rules from the river to the sea, having unified the territory under its control in 1967 and has since then, a half century later, still failed to afford equal rights to the Palestinians who live under its rule. In fact, it is Israel’s continued consolidation of this entire territory, through settlements and military occupation, that has made any possibility of a two-state solution, which was already unfair to Palestinians, impossible and has made positions like the one Hill outlined in his speech not only reasonable but also the only viable and humane solution.

People should be treated as equals before the law, regardless of their identity.

That is precisely why this vision of equality is threatening to those who are stalwart defenders of Israel’s apartheid policies. In fact, a poll found that if a two-state solution is unachievable – and that should be pretty obvious at this point to anyone paying attention – that equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians in a single-state, again from the river to the sea, was supported by 63 percent of Americans, including 74 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of independents and even 50 percent of Republicans.

Israeli police are as fond of Ethiopians as U.S. police are of Blacks.

Knowing well that Americans will turn against apartheid in the long run, defenders of Israel’s discriminatory policies have turned to silencing the critics they can’t best in the battle for American public opinion. Even more threatening is when people who come from various oppressed communities, who have struggled for and continue to struggle for their rights, understand the Palestinian struggle not as a nationalist one but as a rights-based struggle for equality against a fundamentally discriminatory regime.

CNN has unfortunately made it clear which side of this question it stands on. While it fired Hill for the offense of believing Palestinians should be treated equally, it continues to employ and feature serial liar Rick Santorum, who has denied that Palestinians even exist and claimed same-sex marriage was akin to terrorism.

So the message is clear and undeniable. All the despicable, offensive things that Santorum says are not fireable offenses. They have even put up with Jeffrey Lord’s horribly offensive, racist and routinely incoherent blathering for years. It took him literally tweeting a Nazi salute for CNN to decide he was unfit for its air.

While CNN fired Hill for the offense of believing Palestinians should be treated equally, it continues to employ and feature serial liar Rick Santorum, who has denied that Palestinians even exist and claimed same-sex marriage was akin to terrorism.

But Marc Lamont Hill calls for treating Palestinians as equal human beings with equal human and civil rights, and he is out the door in 24 hours.

“All he’s saying is that Palestinian babies deserve the same rights as Israeli babies”.

Story Transcript

JAISAL NOOR: Supporters are coming to the defense of Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, whose abrupt firing from CNN is causing backlash.

The news network let Hill go after a speech Wednesday during the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

MARC LAMONT HILL: As we speak, the conditions on the ground for Palestinian people are worsening. In recent decades, the Israeli government has moved further and further to the right, normalizing settler colonialism and its accompanying logics of denial, destruction, displacement, and death. Despite international condemnation, settlement expansion has continued.

JAISAL NOOR: CNN might not be the only organization parting ways with Hill. Temple University, where Hill is a tenured professor, is reportedly also considering severing ties. In particular, critics noted the end of Hill’s speech.

MARC LAMONT HILL: So as we stand here on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the tragic commemoration of the Nakba, we have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words, but to commit to political action. Grassroots action. Local action. And international action that will give us what justice requires. And that is a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.

JAISAL NOOR: Critics say “a free Palestine, from the river to the sea” is a Hamas slogan calling for the destruction of Israel. But as Hill notes, the phrase pre-dates Hamas’ creation by decades; and Hill has consistently supported a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

To discuss the backlash against Hill and the implications for supporters of Palestinian rights, we caught up with Cornel West.

CORNEL WEST: The important thing is we’ve got to stand with my dear brother Marc. All he’s saying is a Palestinian baby has exactly the same value as a Jewish baby; Jewish baby has the same value as a Palestinian baby. If we can’t have an egalitarian understanding of what it is for a people that have to struggle under ugly occupation on the one hand, and folk who themselves have been hated and despised, but have a responsibility to treating other people with dignity, in this case Palestinians, and to the degree to which we still are unable to have that kind of public dialogue recognizing the humanity on both sides is the degree to which we find ourselves impoverished. So I want to stand very closely and intensely with my dear brother Marc.

JAISAL NOOR: Hill has been accused of being a Hamas supporter, even though he embraces non-violent resistance like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

MARC LAMONT HILL: Solidarity with the international community demands that we embrace boycotts, divestment, and sanctions as a critical means by which to hold Israel accountable for its treatment of Palestinian people. This movement, which emerges out of the overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society, offers a nonviolent means by which to demand a return to the pre-’67 borders, full rights for Palestinian citizens, and the right of return as dictated by international law.

JAISAL NOOR: His comments are being equated with support for Hamas. What’s your response to that?

CORNEL WEST: Everybody knows that brother Marc is not a supporter of Hamas. You can love Palestinian people, you can support their rights and their dignity, and that doesn’t mean you’re a supporter of Hamas. I love Palestinian brothers and sisters. I support their dignity. I support their rights. That doesn’t mean that I’m a supporter of Hamas. And for somebody to make that kind of jump is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And I just find it sad that people would stoop to that level, to try to attack my brother or anybody else who stands with the Palestinian people. We would do exactly the same thing if there were a Palestinian occupation of Jewish brothers and sisters. That wouldn’t mean we supported Irgun, or a Jewish group killing innocent people. But we would support any people who are occupied. Kashmir. Tibet. Any people who are occupied. That includes our precious Palestinian brothers and sisters. So I’m very, very—in deep solidarity with brother Marc.

The controversy that has resulted from Marc Lamont Hill’s speech is just the latest iteration of a larger effort to silence advocacy for Palestinian rights in the United States, at a time when the Trump administration is set to reveal its Israel-centric “peace plan” that is set to be a disaster for Palestinians.

Whitney Webb
December 06, 2018 "Information Clearing House" .

After his UN Speech marking the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine last week was twisted so as to smear him as an anti-Semite, Marc Lamont Hill was subjected to a “political lynching” that saw him fired from his role as a political commentator on CNN and will now see Temple University — his other employer — investigate whether and how to reprimand him for his statements.

During his speech, Hill had called for solidarity with Palestinians and drew on the history of African Americans’ struggle against slavery and apartheid in the United States as an inspiration for the solidarity. Hill then noted that “if we are to operate in true solidarity with Palestinian people, we must allow the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity and political possibility” that were afforded African Americans, including “self-defense” and other tactics that do not fit neatly with “non-violence.”

However, the part of Hill’s speech that has been deemed the most controversial was his concluding call for a “a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which recognizes the reality that the area historically known as Palestine is, in fact, not free, as Palestinians in the territory are currently under siege from a decade-long blockade, under military occupation, or under an apartheid legal system. Yet Hill’s detractors have directed their outrage at that single line, twisting it to mean the destruction or “genocide” of the Israeli state, while also failing to recognize the genocide of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel in the first place.

Since he was dismissed from his role at CNN, many of the same voices that pressured the news organization to fire Hill are now pushing for Temple University to do the same. On Tuesday, Temple University’s newspaper — The Temple News — published a story reporting that the university is set to “investigate” Hill and is determining whether he can be “reprimanded” by the university for the statements that he had made at the United Nations. The university had previously stood by Hill. Notably, many of the strongest voices that have been calling for Hill to be fired first from CNN and now from Temple University have close ties to the Israeli government, top U.S. Israel lobby organizations, or pro-Israel stalwarts with ties to the U.S. political establishment.

Trouble at Temple

Last Friday, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article in which it noted that one of the people pushing for Hill to be fired from Temple University was Leonard Barrack, who was described as a “Temple trustee and major donor to the university.” Barrack, who is also a Temple alumnus and former finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was quoted as saying that “He [Hill] called for the destruction of the State of Israel in code words. I am very upset about it. I think it was anti-Semitic.”

However, the article fails to note that Leonard Barrack is also former president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which regularly hosts events in Philadelphia with American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), arguably the most influential Israel lobby group in the U.S., and StandWithUs, an Israel lobby group whose activities on U.S. college campuses were exposed in a recently leaked documentary.

Even though the article mentions the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia immediately below where it quotes Barrack, it does not mention this connection between the two nor does it note that the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia or the Israel lobby groups it collaborates with promote Israeli colonialism, the apartheid system imposed on Palestinians by the Israeli state ,and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from historical Palestine.

Barrack, given that he is a Temple trustee as well as a major donor who is also politically influential, clearly made his outrage heard, as evidenced by recent statements from the chairman of Temple’s board of trustees, Patrick O’Connor, who told the Inquirer, “the board’s not happy. The administration’s not happy. People wanted to fire him right away. We’re going to look at what remedies we have.” Both O’Connor and Barrack are prominent lawyers in Philadelphia in addition to being Temple trustees.

Another Temple University alumnus with connections to the Israel lobby pushing for Hill to be fired is the President of the Zionist Organization of American (ZOA), Morton Klein. Klein went even further than Barrack in expressing his outrage over Hill’s speech, calling for the university to fire Hill, whom he called a “Bigot Jew-hater.” Klein also condemns Hill for his past statements on Palestine, including voicing his support for Ahed Tamimi — whom Klein calls a “convicted Palestinian-Arab terrorist” — and for denouncing “settler encroachment” and the “systematic abuse of Palestinian children,” which Klein equated to “blood libel.”

Klein concludes his long statement on Hill, which was quoted by numerous news outlets, by stating:

As a Temple University alumnus from where I received two degrees, I am especially shocked, embarrassed and ashamed that Mr. Hill teaches at my alma mater and has a named Chair no less. His working at Temple can only hurt fundraising and support for the University.”

Like Barrack, Klein has considerable political pull in this situation, not because of his ties to Temple University necessarily, but because of his ties to the Trump administration and Trump’s largest political donor, Sheldon Adelson. Klein, who is also close to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, was instrumental in installing John Bolton as National Security Adviser by leading the campaign to have Bolton’s predecessor, H.R. McMaster, fired over alleged “anti-Israel” beliefs. Bolton is a close confidant of Sheldon Adelson, the largest donor to Trump and the Republican Party. Adelson also funds the organization Klein leads, ZOA.

Hill’s head sought by pro-Israel right and left

In addition to ZOA, other notable Israel lobby groups, such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC), have been vocally calling for Hill to be fired. For instance, AJC’s “chief storyteller,” Avi Mayer claimed that Hill’s speech called for the “violent annihilation” of Israel and mischaracterized Hill as a Hamas supporter for opposing U.S. funding of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually in military aid, which is set to top $3.8 billion this year.

On Tuesday @CNN aired a devastating report on antisemitism in Europe. Today CNN's @marclamonthill echoed Jihadist calls for Israel's violent annihilation, calling for "resist[ance]" to achieve "a free Palestine from the river to the sea." Not a great look. pic.twitter.com/r26Q1BU0lR

— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) November 29, 2018

Notably, prior to working for AJC, Mayer worked as a “foreign media liaison” for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He has also worked in the Israeli embassy in Washington and for AIPAC.

AJC claims to be very different from ZOA in the sense that AJC seeks to cater to “liberals” while ZOA is focused more on Republicans and conservatives. However, both are equally committed to promoting Zionism. Indeed, AJC was instrumental in promoting the Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism that seeks to define certain criticisms of the Israeli state as anti-Semitism. The group is exceptionally well-funded, with an annual income of over $49 million, most of which comes from private donors.

Notably, a subsidiary of AJC, UN Watch, has also been very vocal in its condemnation of Hill. UN Watch is frequently quoted by media outlets on a variety of issues related to the United Nations and its alleged bias towards Israel. However, the fact that it is a “wholly owned subsidiary” of AJC is rarely noted, with the outlets only sometimes noting that UN Watch is a “pro-Israel monitor.”

In crosshairs of “fiercely Zionistic” National Council of Young Israel

Another important and controversial Zionist organization pushing for Hill to be fired from Temple University is the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI). NCYI’s call to have Hill fired was widely quoted by both Israeli and U.S. media outlets.

The #NCYI is calling on @cnn @templeuniv to fire Marc Lamont Hill following his highly offensive & virulent anti-Semitism remarks. They're abhorrent, & his senseless promotion of violence against Israel is repugnant.
He can't be given a platform to serve as a pundit or professor!

— NCYI Young Israel (@NCYIYoungIsrael) November 29, 2018

NCYI, essentially an umbrella group for over 100 smaller organizations spread throughout different areas of the United States, has a storied history, having been founded over 100 years ago.

As an example, NCYI boasts on its web page that, prior to Israel’s founding in 1948, it funneled weapons to Zionist terror groups like Irgun. Irgun, which NCYI calls a “defense force” on its website, began bombing and attacking Palestinian civilian targets in 1938, 10 years before Israel’s founding. It is best known for the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, which killed 91 people, as well as the Deir Yassin massacre, which killed over 100 Palestinian civilians as part of a self-described “cleansing” campaign.

Irgun’s leader, Menachem Begin, was called a terrorist and fascist by Albert Einstein and many other prominent Jewish American intellectuals in an open letter published in the New York Times in 1948. He went on to found the precursor to today’s Likud political party. Notably, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which has strongly condemned Hill’s speech and smeared him as “anti-Semitic,” recently hosted an event celebrating Begin’s legacy, bizarrely likening Begin to Martin Luther King Jr.

In addition to considering its past support of terror groups as a point of pride, NCYI also led the effort to commute the sentence of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who had given top-secret classified U.S. government information to Israel and other countries. Pollard was imprisoned in the late 1980s and released in 2015.

NCYI, which describes itself as “fiercely Zionistic,” now promotes anti-BDS initiatives on U.S. college campuses, including Temple University. Owing to its decentralized nature, there is little information on the group’s finances and donors.

A skirmish in a larger war to silence pro-Palestinian advocacy

The firestorm of criticism around Marc Lamont Hill’s speech was undeniably engineered, particularly given the fact that the outrage centered on a single phrase at the end of the lengthy speech and the fact that the subsequent campaign against Hill employed prominent figures and organizations in the Israel lobby, many of whom hold extremist positions and are openly racist.

Ultimately, the controversy that has resulted from Hill’s speech is just the latest iteration of a larger effort to silence advocacy for Palestinian rights in the United States, particularly at a time when Israel’s right-wing government is seeking to annex Palestine’s West Bank and when the Gaza Strip is approaching its breaking point as a result of the inhuman decade-long blockade of the enclave by Israel. It also comes at a time when the Trump administration is set to reveal its Israel-centric “peace plan” that is set to be a disaster for Palestinians and major give-away to Zionist interests.

The Israel lobby that represents extreme political Zionism in the United States is seeking to make an example of Hill in order to avoid having to discuss the important issues he brought up in his speech. These critics of Hill have claimed that he implicitly called for the destruction of Israel as a state. Though Hill did not make that claim, the alarm raised by these critics is ironic given that Israel is currently — and has been for decades — seeking to ethnically cleanse the historic land of Palestine of all of its indigenous inhabitants.

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